Teaching Strategies That help EFL Learners to Develop Their Vocabulary and Speaking Skills Through Communicative Tasks

Abstract: AbstractThis paper investigates the benefits of using different teaching strategies to develop EFL learners’ vocabulary and speaking skills. Undeniably, there are some learners in grades 4-6 who have difficulties to speak and to learn new vocabulary in English classroom, due to many reasons. To examine the impact of different teaching strategies, an electronic research in educational databases ERIC via EBSCO was conducted. The materials used were peer-reviewed journal articles and literature. By examining and analyzing the different articles found, its evident that English teachers often focus on writing and reading activities instead of communicative activities. Some teachers often use the first language in the classroom and learners will do as their teachers. Factors such as large classroom sizes and limitation of communication tasks can motivated learners and make them less confident in speaking and practicing English. These can be the reasons why some EFL learners do not speak and use vocabulary during the communicative activities in the classroom. Thus, this paper clarifies teaching methods and strategies that teachers can use to increase vocabulary learning and speaking in the EFL classroom. Results have shown that the theory of Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning was beneficial to include all learner in authentic communicative activities, which also created an environment that was both communicative and supportive. The communication-based learning activities, such as songs, games, stories, pair work and project work, are useful for learners, since it establishes a communicative environment. Moreover, these activities increase the EFL learners’ motivation towards speaking.